Anna Karenina eBook

Probably on Oblonsky’s pointing them out, he
looked round in the direction where the princess and
Sergey Ivanovitch were standing, and without speaking
lifted his hat. His face, aged and worn by suffering,
looked stony.

Going onto the platform, Vronsky left his mother and
disappeared into a compartment.

On the platform there rang out “God save the
Tsar,” then shouts of “hurrah!”
and "jivio!" One of the volunteers, a tall,
very young man with a hollow chest, was particularly
conspicuous, bowing and waving his felt hat and a
nosegay over his head. Then two officers emerged,
bowing too, and a stout man with a big beard, wearing
a greasy forage cap.

Chapter 3

Saying good-bye to the princess, Sergey Ivanovitch
was joined by Katavasov; together they got into a
carriage full to overflowing, and the train started.

At Tsaritsino station the train was met by a chorus
of young men singing “Hail to Thee!”
Again the volunteers bowed and poked their heads out,
but Sergey Ivanovitch paid no attention to them.
He had had so much to do with the volunteers that the
type was familiar to him and did not interest him.
Katavasov, whose scientific work had prevented his
having a chance of observing them hitherto, was very
much interested in them and questioned Sergey Ivanovitch.

Sergey Ivanovitch advised him to go into the second-class
and talk to them himself. At the next station
Katavasov acted on this suggestion.

At the first stop he moved into the second-class and
made the acquaintance of the volunteers. They
were sitting in a corner of the carriage, talking
loudly and obviously aware that the attention of the
passengers and Katavasov as he got in was concentrated
upon them. More loudly than all talked the tall,
hollow-chested young man. He was unmistakably
tipsy, and was relating some story that had occurred
at his school. Facing him sat a middle-aged
officer in the Austrian military jacket of the Guards
uniform. He was listening with a smile to the
hollow-chested youth, and occasionally pulling him
up. The third, in an artillery uniform, was
sitting on a box beside them. A fourth was asleep.

Entering into conversation with the youth, Katavasov
learned that he was a wealthy Moscow merchant who
had run through a large fortune before he was two-and-twenty.
Katavasov did not like him, because he was unmanly
and effeminate and sickly. He was obviously
convinced, especially now after drinking, that he was
performing a heroic action, and he bragged of it in
the most unpleasant way.

The second, the retired officer, made an unpleasant
impression too upon Katavasov. He was, it seemed,
a man who had tried everything. He had been
on a railway, had been a land-steward, and had started
factories, and he talked, quite without necessity,
of all he had done, and used learned expressions quite
inappropriately.